Climate Change Fiction – Just for Fun or Forecasting the Future?

We enjoy reading books and watching movies that create plot-lines around extreme weather and environmental conditions that threaten life as know it. In these creative works, there’s often no bad guy, but there is a hazard that needs to be avoided or overcome. This genre of climate change fiction, or “cli-fi” offers us a chance to be entertained by altered environments and severe weather situations, while simultaneously cultivating thoughts of our current climate situation. This session will introduce books by well known authors like Margaret Atwood, Kim Stanley Robinson, and others that depict climate change and/or its effects. Participants will discuss the real life implications of these works and how their communities can be impacted by climate change.

Ted Howell is a professor in the Writing Arts department at Rowan University. He earned his PhD at Temple University. Ted teaches a course called “Cli-Fi” to engage larger conversations about this expanding genre. He maintains a website named after the course, a resource designed to benefit other educators teaching climate change fiction.